Nils Lou

2012-01-01T15:18:00.000-08:00

"Anomalies" is an exhibition of pots and paintings. It will be on view at the Linfield Art Gallery from Jan 3 to Jan 27, 2012

The pots have anomalous creatures created with gestural emphasis to accentuate their presence. The pots and paintings express my attempt to explore the nature of play in making things authentically and creatively.

2012-01-01T15:15:00.000-08:00

Black Tea Pot
(with lizard)

2012-01-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

2012-01-01T15:04:00.000-08:00

Bones of Clay

With clay slip and acrylic medium I established the background by pouring and manipulating the grid-like background.
I intended to introduce color, but was compelled to simply lay the figure out in charcoal with a simple drawing.

2012-01-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

Dream Dancing

This is larger, 60" x 60".
As I gazed on what had so far done nothing to suggest a figure, I decided to make a random mark with charcoal. More marks, some erasing, paint and wiping...

I played with the lines, changing everything until the figure came gradually out of the chaos.

2012-01-01T14:46:00.000-08:00

In lazy Pause, Idles Her Thoughts

2012-01-01T14:43:00.000-08:00

Girl with Goldfish

2012-01-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

Mohammed and Marilyn

2012-01-01T14:38:00.000-08:00

Young Girl with Lemon

This one is a teaser as the title suggests a female figure in the composition somewhere...

2012-01-01T14:28:00.000-08:00

New American Girl

One of the first in this series of "Anomalies",
it is acrylic on canvas and began as the background
was developed. Gradually, a figure began to emerge
and the composition suggested a fairly realistic
figure in an anomalous background. This was my thought process as paintings suggested themselves. The first marks were usually random color until an idea formed. A few strokes of charcoal, and the figure emerged. Always in a surprising fashion.

2012-01-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

"Woman and the Red Door"

(the frame is from a Catholic Church in
Anchorage, Alaska, circa 1870)

2012-01-01T14:20:00.000-08:00

South east corner

2012-01-01T14:16:00.000-08:00

Northwest corner

"Anomalies"

2012-01-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

These are acrylic on canvas featuring figures in anomalous settings. Sixteen paintings from 2011.
(mostly summer and fall)

"Anomalies", new show in January

2012-01-01T13:59:00.001-08:00

2011-11-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

Firing #105, first look

2011-10-24T18:41:00.000-07:00

100 hours of firing we un-bricked the door and began unloading. This shot is the third stacking and you can see Alice's tea pot on the top shelf (left).

There were pots from three colleges and two high schools as well as the professional contingent regulars.

This was one of our best firings—even all the way from fron to back with Cone 12 flat!

Alice's Tea Pot from Wonderland

2011-10-24T18:27:00.001-07:00

This latest tea pot from East Creek Anagama firing # 105. It is about 14" high and features slithering things one can only imagine.

In the shot taken inside the kiln you can see it in the upper left corner.

Girl with Red Hair and Blue Shoes

2011-07-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

2011-05-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

2011-05-11T08:42:00.000-07:00

2011-05-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

2011-05-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

2011-05-11T08:34:00.000-07:00

Latest paintings for Bush Barn show

2011-05-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

preview 15 pages

2011-04-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

Art of Play by Nils Lou | Make Your Own Book

2011-03-21T09:10:00.000-07:00

So maybe it’s just a pot. Maybe the Greek guys were right. Yet it strikes me, looking into the maw of this volatile and strangely comforting furnace, that our foolhardy canoe slipping downriver into the current of an unruly past is bringing back something that the future needs. A sense of the vitality of the frankly physical. The nitty-gritty joy of sheer cussedness. The primal and transformative power of clay and blood and bone and raw human doing-ness that can’t be conveniently abstracted away by the intellectual arbiters of an overcrowded lockstep world. The fugitive pleasures of fun. The potters, the weavers, the carvers, the hand people, are our wild children and our pioneers and our roots. Let them feed the fires. Let them float the canoes. Likely as not, we’ll be needing what they know. ~Bob Hicks, Free Lance writer for the "Oregonian".

2011 March firing, East Creek anagama

2011-03-15T07:29:00.000-07:00

Art Scatter, by Bob Hicks, photos by Richard Yates

This is the story of the East Creek anagama—gorgeous photographs by Dick Yates and a compelling poetic tale written by Bob Hicks, capturing the nuance of twenty-six years of
woodfiring in the Pacific Northwest. Read it at:

http://www.artscatter.com/general/circle-of-fire-tending-the-anagama-kiln/

The Goat Who Ate My Art

2011-03-09T08:28:00.000-08:00

"The Goat Who Ate My Art" is characterized by a sculpture constructed by my good friend and colleague, Totem Shriver. The "Goat" periodically finds new "positions" around the art building—sometimes on the roof (as in this case), sometimes under a bush. But always watching for a chance to eat "My" art. He is illustrated in the book, often at the end of a chapter, symbolizing the threat of falling victim to imitation. He is, after all, the god of the authentic.

2011-02-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

I've had this core sample for years knowing I would ultimately find a home for it. It was cored from a brick wall for some purpose, but now rests on a curved part of this chunk of clay fired in Jim Busby's Caboose kiln. Woodfired to C12 in 40 hours. The "core" is removable for use as a doorstop.

Meta-Figures, 2009, 48" X 60"

2009-09-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

Meta-Figures is the latest in a series of experimental "ceramic paintings". The process starts with some surface painting with latex (in this case, black) leaving some areas unpainted. Clay slip is prepared in a variety of consistencies and poured while the canvas is angled from flat to vertical. Turning the canvas while pouring, shapes the pour in interesting ways, and I then let the process dry. I use liquid acrylic medium added to the slip to plasticize the medium so it is fixed to the canvas. When it is dry I introduce three basic chalks, charcoal, red conte and white. These are used to define and shape images that emerge as I work. I have no image in mind when I begin—the final result is the product of the play impulse I have developed and write about in The Play Book.

'38 studebaker/hood

2009-06-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is an attempt to manipulate an object that has some historical residue (at least for the older amongst us), ritualize the form as an icon of sorts and formalize the presentation so it is regarded in an esthetic state. i.e., frame it for attention. The fun part was the finding of the metal fragment in a junk yard, banging it flat, shooting at it as a target for what I call "mystery/history", and finally dealing with the presentation. All the while, I am intrigued with the potential implications of iconic ambiguity—forcing the viewer to imagine and create possibilities of past and now. Play!

2009-04-30T11:58:00.001-07:00

AAVC 299, ALTERNATIVE MEDIA: Creative Play

The following is a description of a new course at Linfield

College (fall 2009) using The Play Book as a text.

This course will consist of two parts. One is an investigation into the thesis that play (playing) is a state of consciousness that promotes creativity. We will examine existing literature and check with institutional websites for any material that may substantiate (or deny) the primary thesis. Each of you will be expected to explore and research material resulting in an in-depth paper with your own personal conclusion.

And secondly, we will experiment by establishing two separate pathways towards a common goal as a laboratory experiment for direct experience using a described project with well-defined parameters. Here the goal is to direct your energies to completing a series of projects in a clearly prescribed manner. This will be familiar to most of you as it is how you have experienced art so far.

The other approach will be an exercise in taking control of your own interests. It will be using play as an essential tool for personal exploration into creative visual design and inventing a design project that reflects your desire. It may be anything! You are the BOSS. You may work alone or in collaboration. Start by starting. You can’t do anything wrong. Make your own rules. What if???

The class will evaluate the two approaches and attempt to reach conclusion on the efficacy of each. It will be an attempt to validate one or the other as the more creative. I expect there will be accumulated evidence to suggest that play is an important element in the creative exercise. But is it an essential? We will assess our findings and come to a conclusion that can be supported by evidentiary analysis.

Playing may be a quantum state of consciousness. Play is vibrant, it swarms with possibilities that go beyond our individual creative practices—beyond art. It is an active gateway to collecting, and connecting to the fields of energies that activate our world. Does it play an essential role in creativity?

Play is a fundamental state of being, and has been shown to be crucial to creative awareness. Play power is a modulus for creativity, a gift that can be nurtured as a wonderful tool for opening the world of imagination. The playful mind is sublime, passionate. The playful mind revels in ambiguity—not the ambiguity of those unable to make decisions, but the ambiguity inherent in shear possibility before decisions are made—positive ambiguity. It is a powerful tool for the exploration of options, of new and stimulating ways of making connections. But, can play be integrated successfully into the design process and how can it be done?

In the last half of the 20^th century physicists have refined and developed an understanding of the universe that boggles common perception of reality. Through creative insights welling up from our unconscious, each of us has the potential to affirm similarities between the dance of imagination while at play, and experience the magical trajectory of a unique thought as it emerges into our consciousness. We have all experienced the wonder of, “where did that come from?” The human capacity for creativity, where mysterious leaps of the imagination can deposit a discrete thought into a conscious field, without an obvious trajectory, is at least analogous and may even be literally, a quantum event. How marvelous!

When we improvise we are creative. Play is a dance of intent without formula or endpoint. Focusing on the process may seem counterintuitive, but we will show that an intentional focus on the product is counterproductive—and imitative. By focusing on the process the ultimate product reveals itself in stages, layers and gradual unfolding as work progresses. The result often surprises us as it becomes. This is not imitative, but authentic expression of working from the inside out instead of outside in. Because play relies so heavily on ambiguity and is a state of being, how can it be consciously incorporated into conscious behavior like designing a project?

Teapot in April, 2009 !POTS! show

2009-04-29T19:24:00.001-07:00

This is a result of a large drawing of a fanciful teapot culminating in a clay work.